Establishing Predominance of English for Specific Purposes within Adult English Language Teaching

Book excerpt: English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has accumulated substantial tradition in practice, research and theory. It is a common approach in English Language Teaching (ELT) among adults today, starting with high schools, then in academia, pre and in-service training, and life-long learning programs. The role of ESP in each of these is to facilitate work in today’s inevitably international business and scientific environment. It provides language training based on the precise simulation of communicative situations found in the surroundings for which learners are preparing, including, for example, domain specific vocabulary, syntactic and morphological structures, text and speech content structuring, stylistics, intercultural competence. At present, when English is present either as a foreign or second language, learning General English (GE) is to a large degree accomplished before learners start needing English for their jobs. In this way, ESP does not complete GE, but builds upon the foundations laid by it in learners’ prior education. ESP is a channel of communication for the contemporary academia and economics. However, even so, these are still early days for ESP, as it does not yet have a recognised place within academia. Only very recently have we begun to witness the occasional but encouraging emergence of ESP academic courses and departments. This book thus explores practice and research conducted and under way in this field of ELT in order to assist its recognition as an autonomous academic discipline.